Astragalus puniceus

Title

Astragalus puniceus

Author(s)

Rupert C. Barneby

Scientific Name

Astragalus puniceus Osterh.

Description

47. Astragalus puniceus

Relatively robust, diffuse, the leaves and calyces villosulous with fine, loosely incurved-ascending or largely curly hairs up to 0.4-0.9 (1.2) mm. long, the mature herbage greenish-gray, the young parts canescent, the leaflets somewhat bicolored, brighter green and often less densely pubescent above than beneath (the whole plant except the pod exceptionally glabrous); stems several or numerous, (1.5) 2-5 dm. long, decumbent and radiating to form broad, depressed clumps, simple and buried for a space of 3-10 (17) cm., upon emergence stouter and usually bearing at the first exposed nodes several branches as long as the main axis (these sometimes reduced to sterile spurs), exceptionally simple, flexuous or zigzag distally; stipules 2-6 mm. long, dimorphic, the lowest small, connate into a subtruncate or bidentate, papery, brownish sheath, the median and upper ones herbaceous becoming papery in age, connate through half their length or the uppermost free nearly or quite to the base, with deltoid or lanceolate, erect or deflexed blades; leaves (2) 3-11 cm. long, the lower ones shortly petioled, the rest subsessile, with (7) 13-27 broadly to narrowly elliptic, oblong-oblanceolate, obovate-cuneate, or linear-oblong, mostly truncate-emarginate, sometimes obtuse, flat or loosely folded leaflets (3) 5-16 mm. long; peduncles commonly stout, ascending, straight or nearly so, 2—8 (11.5) cm. long; racemes 5-19 (27)-flowered, rather dense in early anthesis, the flowers ascending, horizontal in age, the axis somewhat elongating, (0.5) 1.5-6.5 cm. long in fruit; bracts lanceolate, 1.5-6 mm. long; pedicels at anthesis ascending and 1—1.8 mm. long, in fruit arcuate-recurved, somewhat thickened, 1.5-2.9 mm. long; bracteoles 2, rarely 0; calyx 6-10.6 mm. long, villosulous like the herbage with mixed black and white hairs, the oblique disc 0.8—1.4 mm. deep, the campanulate or broadly cylindro-campanulate tube 4.9—8 mm. long, 3.2-4.6 mm. in diameter, the subulate, triangular-subulate, or rarely broadly triangular teeth 1.1-2.8 mm. long, the ventral pair commonly shortest and broadest; petals either bright pink-purple or pallid and only lilac-tinged; banner recurved through ± 45°, ovate-cuneate, rhombic-ovate, or elliptic-oblanceolate, 13.4—21 mm. long, 7-12 mm. wide; wings 13.5-18 mm. long, the claws 6.2-7.5 mm., the oblong-oblanceolate, quadrately oblong, rarely linear-oblong, obtuse, erose, or (when broad) obliquely emarginate, straight or slightly incurved blades 8.5-13 mm. long, 2.3—4.3 mm. wide; keel 10.4—14 mm. long, the claws 5.8—8 mm., the half-obovate blades 5.4—7.5 mm. long, 2.6—3.8 mm. wide, incurved through 85— 95° to the bluntly deltoid apex; anthers 0.5—0.8 mm. long; pod horizontally spreading or declined, sessile, obliquely oblong- or ovoid-ellipsoid, 1.5—2.4 cm. long, (4.5) 5-9.5 mm. in diameter, turgid or somewhat inflated, gently incurved, rounded or cuneately obtuse at base, contracted distally into a short, laterally compressed, triangular, cuspidate beak, otherwise subterete or a trifle obcompressed, the thick, nearly straight to concavely arched ventral suture either prominent or depressed into a shallow groove, the more slender dorsal suture only rarely depressed, the fleshy, loosely strigulose or villosulous valves becoming leathery, transversely reticulate, brownish or stramineous; ovules 25-36; seeds (seldom seen) purplish-brown, pitted but sublustrous, ± 3 mm. long.